T.C.F. Revue MensuelleMarch 1900 - Columbia advert

We think of the highly desirable, heavily marketed, American bicycle brand as being a 1980s mountain biking phenomenon. It’s a given that, before then, the bicycle traffic across the Atlantic was all one way - from Europe to America. But of course this is nonsense. At the turn of the twentieth century American mass production was well able to offer a quality bike at a price that could more than interest the European consumer.